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Benegal that left the most lasting impression on him. It is said that in 1977, while on
vacation in his village, he was introduced to the celebrated director, who was in the midst
of shooting
Manthan
,
an ode to “Operation Flood”
—
the milk revolution in Gujarat, India.
For two entire months, Mehta worked with Benegal as a spot boy, absorbing the finer
nuances of film-making and getting a feel of the action behind the all-seeing camera.
His dream to make a commercial masala, song 'n' dance type
Hindi film one day also probably owed its inspiration to this first,
hands-on exposure to the realm of cinema. It was a dream he never
abandoned, and it may even have achieved fruition, had fate not so
cruelly intervened.
It was Mehta’s wanderlust, his love for travel meanwhile that added
yet another dimension to his experience with cinema. In 1982, he
founded the Asian Travel Writers Association with a view to promote India as a travel
destination. In the same year he embarked on his journey towards film-making with
Glimpses of India
,
a 20 minute documentary on Indian tourism. Recognition came his way
as the film
—
his debut into the “reel” world
—
won an award in the Commonwealth Film
Festival in Leeds in 1983.
It was also during this period,when encouraged by this share of global fame,Mehta decided
to try his hand at computer graphics.Tete-a-tetes with the computer and animation gurus
in the UK had convinced him that the future of film-making lay in digital wizardry. He
enrolled for a course in computer graphics at the hallowed Imperial College, London to
add yet another skill set to his existing portfolio of expertise.
The element of design and graphics always fascinated him. In
fact, it continued to remain a key interest for Mehta well after he
discontinued his learning in the UK and headed home to join Orissa
Cements in Bhubaneswar to set up a computer graphics facility for
the company. His eye for color, images and anything visual made him
a keen aesthete. He would personally involve himself, sometimes
almost fanatically, in every single presentation, every brochure, booklet
or piece of promotional literature that emerged from the portals of
NASSCOM. Besides the content, the look and feel of the work was very important to him
and he was handy with his suggestions and tips.
Mehta’s love for the written word was yet another passion he carefully nurtured and used
effectively in the course of his professional work. A “middle” for the
The Times of India
in
1978,
gained him an entry into Maneka Gandhi’s
Surya
.
He became a regular contributor
Dewang, a leadeer in the making
